Tuesday, January 18, 2011

WIPO Vs WIPD: Battle begins

This blog post is the extract of IPKAT Post (here), presented here in different form to understand the issue very clearly. As, our readers are well aware about WIPO and its role. WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization has initiated legal proceedings against the imitation website of the World Intellectual Property Database (WIPD).It came to notice of WIPO in September, 2010. This site WIPD and its contents appearance can be said as highly organized and persistent fraud operation. WIPO Secretariat is taking all the possible efforts to takle this issue at the earliest.

2. WIPO has the tagline as “Encouraging Creativity and Innovation” while, WIPD has tagline as “Imagine Creativity and Innovation”.

3. WIPO & WIPD homepage have the colour combination of the font is very similar appearance.

4. WIPO & WIPD both site are have the content related to IPR. But WIPD have contents for Patent & Trademark only.

5. Logo of WIPO (image here) and WIPD (image here) are also similar in appearance.

WIPO actions:

1. WIPO has already sent cease and desist letters, as per the present view of the site we can say that WIPD neither ceased nor desisted.

2. WIPO has also alerted the users of its international filing and registration services, who are the intended targets of the fraud.

3. The WIPO Secretariat has initiated consultations with the national authorities of the Czech Republic, where the site is hosted. Since they also host EURid's dispute resolution body, which can deal with .eu problems but not .biz.

4. WIPO has issued a warning about payment of fees. (Here). WIPO is currently pursuing further legal options to end the fraud.

As per my view, WIPO have so many grounds to prove the fraudulent behavior of WIPD. We hope WIPO will be succeeding to prove the fraudulent manner, adopted by the WIPD to take advantage of WIPO reputation.